US Army. Following basic training, 19-year-old Ross Spears went AWOL seeking refuge in Ottawa, Canada in May 2007 in order to resist deployment to Iraq.
Spears said he signed up to be a truck driver, but was trained to kill using practice targets shaped like women in burqas with bazookas on their shoulders.
“The cadences they made us sing were…’I went to the playground where all the children play; pulled out my Uzi and I began to spray.’ And just the way they talked about going over there and killing people that made it seem like it was … hunting animals or something, hunting deer.”
He asked his commanders for conscientious objector status, which would allow him to leave the army for reasons of conscience.
His commanders responded by binding his hands and roughing him up as discipline.
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“After Alex was killed in Iraq, my ex-wife told me that he didn’t want to go back … If I had known about Courage to Resist, Alex might be alive today.”
